Letters That Have Helped Me by Jasper Niemand Thomas Green

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Title: Letter That Have Helped Me

Author: Various

Compiler: Jasper Niemand
Compiler: Thomas Green

Release Date: October 28, 2017 [EBook #55833]

Language: English

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LETTERS

THAT

HAVE HELPED ME

COMPILED BY

JASPER NIEMAND

Reprinted from "The Path"

SEVENTH EDITION

THE

UNITED LODGE OF THEOSOPHISTS

Los Angeles, California

1920

To

Z. L. Z.

the Greatest of

the Exiles, and Friend
of all Creatures, from his

Younger Brother, the Compiler.

JASPER NIEMAND

1891

PREFACE

"Seeking for freedom I go to that God who is the light of his own thoughts. A man who knows him truly passes

over death; there is no other path to go"—Upanishads.

In the Path for May, 1887, we find these words: "We need a literature, not solely for highly intellectual persons, but of a more

simple character, which attempts to appeal to ordinary common-sense minds who are really fainting for such moral and mental
assistance as is not reached by the more pretentious works."

The experience of one student is, on the whole, the experience of all. Details differ, however. Some are made more instantly rich

than others: they are those who put forth more vigorous and generous effort; or they have a Karmic store which brings aid. What
Theosophists know as Karma, or the law of spiritual action and reaction, decides this, as it works on all the planes, physical, moral,
mental, psychical, and spiritual alike. Our Karma may be worked out on any one of these planes when our life is chiefly concentrated
upon it, no matter upon what other plane any special initiative impulse or branch of it originated.

The writer, when first he became a Theosophical student, had the aid of an advanced occultist in his studies. This friend sent him,

among others, the letters which, in the hope that they may assist others as they have the original recipient, are here published. They are
not exhaustive treatises; they are hints given by one who knew that the first need of a student is to learn how to think. The true direction
is pointed out, and the student is left to clarify his own perceptions, to draw upon and enlarge his own intuitions, and to develop, as
every created thing must at last develop, by his own inward exertions. Such students have passed the point where their external
environment can affect their growth favorably. They may learn from it, but the time has also come to resist it and turn to the internal
adjustment to higher relations only.

The brevity of these letters should not mislead the reader. Every statement in them is a statement of law. They point to causes of

which life is an effect; that life arising from the action of Spirit in Nature, and which we must understand as it is manifested within us
before we can advance on the Path. There is a scientific meaning within all these devotional or ethical injunctions, for the Wisdom-
Religion never relaxes her hold upon Science or attempts to dissever an effect from its cause. Most of these admonitions have their base
in the constitution of the Archæus, or World-Soul, and the correlation of its energies; others, still, adhere in the Eternal.

No less should the reader guard himself against a slight estimate arising from the exquisite modesty of Z. An occultist is never so

truly a man of power as when he has wholly learned and exhibits this truth:

"And the power the disciple shall desire is that which shall make him appear as nothing in the eyes of men."
The inner eye, the power of seeing, looks deeper into the source of a man's knowledge and takes it at its true value. Those men

who are sharers in the Divine, whose first office is to give, are often protected from the demands and curiosity of the careless by a
simple exterior which deceives the worldly sense. Some men are great because of the Power which stands behind them, the divine
energies which flow through them; they are great through having learned how to receive this celestial influx from higher spheres of Being;
they are the appointed ministrants, the true servitors of the Law and pupils of Masters whose office is humanitarian and universal.

Such aid is never volunteered; it follows the Karmic behest, and, when given, leaves the student free to follow it or not, as his

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intuitions may direct. There is not a shadow or vestige of authority in the matter, as the world understands the word authority. Those
who travel the unknown way send messages back, and he who can receives them. Only a few of the first steps are here recorded and
the first impediments surmounted. No hints of magic lore are to be found; no formulas of creed or occult powers; the questions of an
awakening soul are answered, and the pilgrim is shown where lies the entrance to the Path. The world at large seeks the facts of occult
science, but the student who has resolved to attain desires to find the true road. What may seem to others as mere ethics is to him
practical instruction, for as he follows it he soon perceives its relation to facts and laws which he is enabled to verify, and what seemed
to him the language of devotion merely, is found to be that of science; but the science is spiritual, for the Great Cause is pure Spirit.

Many students must at some time stand where the writer then stood, at the beginning of the way. For all these this correspondence

is made public, and they are urged to look within the printed words for their imperishable meaning. They may be cheered to find the
footprints of a comrade upon the rugged Path, above which the light of Truth ever shines. Yet even this light is not always a clear
splendor. It may seem "in the daytime a cloud, and by night a pillar of fire." We must question every external aspect, even that of Faith
itself, for the secret and germ of things lies at their core. Let us purify even our Faith; let us seek Truth herself, and not our
preconceptions of Truth. In her mirror we shall never see our own familiar face: that which we see is still ourselves, because our real self
is truth.

As the Theosophical movement gathers new momentum, fresh recruits may be aided by those letters which so greatly sustained me,

or encouraged by some copartnership of thought, and that, too, in the real issue confronting them. We first take this issue to be the
acquirement of occult knowledge. Soon we find that the meaning of all really informed occult writers eludes us. We find that books only
serve to remind us of what we knew in the long past, perhaps when "journeying with Deity", and the echoes awakened within us are so
faint that they are rarely to be caught. Whether we study philosophies, metaphysics, physics, ethics, harmony, astrology, natural
sciences, astralism, magnetism or what not, we meet with endless contradiction and differentiation; we forever require to strike the
balance of our own intuition. We discover that the final word has not yet been written down upon any of the higher subjects (unless it
be on mathematics, and scarcely on that), and that all our learning is but a finger-post to that supreme knowledge of Truth which is only
found and closely guarded within the human heart. Thrown back upon our inner perceptions for continual readjustment, on every side of
experience this warning confronts us: Stand ready to abandon all thou hast learned! Not knowing the one center, we cannot
thoroughly know any sub-center. The cause unknown, effects mislead us. Then we turn to that mysterious center whereby the One is
manifest in man, and we begin the study of the heart, both in itself and in the life it has instituted about us.

To be put into more direct communication with the world of cause is now the student's most pressing need. One thing alone

prevents this,—himself. He is of such gross fibre that he cannot be "porous to thought, bibulous of the sea of light". To the refinement
and dispersal of this lower self—of the man he now takes himself to be—he then directs his will. Each man has a different mode of
doing this, but each who advances at all finds that with every new period of his inner life a new self rises before him. Looking back over
a group of weeks or months, he is amazed to see what manner of man he was then, and smiles that pitying smile which we bestow upon
the faded letters of our youth.

Yet some there be who ossify there in their rut; let them struggle mightily to break up the mass which has resisted all environment,

all change, all the conditions of progressive life. They have done for themselves what the enemy strives to do for others; they are the
rock in their own path.

What our Eastern brothers call "the sheaths of the heart" fall away one by one; when the last bursts open there is a silence, the

silence of the mystic death. But "the dead shall arise," and from that death springs up the first tender growth of eternal life.

Up to this point we shall not travel in the ensuing pages. Yet having realized the real issue so forcibly that his whole strength was at

the start directed towards self-knowledge and the right use of Thought, the writer offers a part of his first instructions to those of his
comrades who, single-hearted and of royal Faith, hold Truth to be dearer than all material life and seek it on the hidden way. There is no
tie in the universe equal to that which binds such comrades together. It has been forged in the fires of unspeakable anguish; it has been
rivetted by a dauntless purpose and a unique, because Divine, Love. The fierce hatred of seen and unseen worlds cannot tamper with it
so long as a man remains true to himself, for this larger life is himself, and as he grows towards it his self-imposed fetters fall away and
he stands, at last, a free soul, in the celestial Light which is Freedom itself, obedient only to the Law of its own divine Being. To reach it,
let us obey the law of our own Being, for, truly, Being is One.

My comrades, wherever you are, I salute you.

Jasper Niemand, F. T. S.

LETTERS THAT HAVE HELPED ME

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I.

My Dear Jasper:

Now let me elevate a signal. Do not think much of me, please. Think kindly of me; but oh, my friend, direct your thoughts to the

Eternal Truth. I am, like you, struggling on the road. Perhaps a veil might in an instant fall down from your spirit, and you would be long
ahead of us all. The reason you have had help is that in other lives you gave it to others. In every effort you made to lighten another mind
and open it to Truth, you were helped yourself. Those pearls you found for another and gave to him, you really retained for yourself in
the act of benevolence. For when one lives thus to help others, he is thereby putting in practice the rule to try and "kill out all sense of
separateness," and thus gets little by little in possession of the true light.

Never lose, then, that attitude of mind. Hold fast in silence to all that is your own, for you will need it in the fight; but never, never

desire to get knowledge or power for any other purpose than to give it on the altar, for thus alone can it be saved to you.

So many are there around me who are ardent desirers and seekers, devotees; but they are doing it because the possession seems

valuable. Perhaps I see in you—I hope I mistake not—a pure desire to seek Knowledge for its own sake, and that all others may be
benefitted. So I would point out to you the only royal road, the one vehicle. Do all those acts, physical, mental, moral, for the reason
that they must be done, instantly resigning all interest in them, offering them up upon the altar. What altar? Why, the great spiritual altar,
which is, if one desires it, in the heart. Yet still use earthly discrimination, prudence, and wisdom.

It is not that you must rush madly or boldly out to do, to do. Do what you find to do. Desire ardently to do it, and even when you

shall not have succeeded in carrying anything out but some small duties, some words of warning, your strong desire will strike like
Vulcan upon other hearts in the world, and suddenly you will find that done which you had longed to be the doer of. Then rejoice that
another had been so fortunate as to make such a meritorious Karma. Thus, like the rivers running into the unswelling, passive ocean, will
your desires enter into your heart.

I find all your remarks just; and besides, there seems to be a real spirit behind them. Do not fear nor fail because you feel dark and

heavy. The very rage you feel will break the shrine that covers the mystery after a while. No one can really help you. No one can open
your doors. You locked them up, and only you can open them. When you open any door, beyond it you find others standing there who
had passed you long ago, but now, unable to proceed, they are there waiting; others are there waiting for you. Then you come, and,
opening a door, those waiting disciples perhaps may pass on; thus on and on. What a privilege this, to reflect that we may perhaps be
able to help those who seemed greater than ourselves!

O, what a groan Nature gives to see the heavy Karma which man has piled upon himself and all the creatures of the three worlds!

That deep sigh pierces through my heart. How can the load be lifted? Am I to stand for myself, while the few strong hands of Blessed
Masters and Their friends hold back the awful cloud? Such a vow I registered ages ago to help them, and I must. Would to great
Karma I could do more! And you! do what you can.

Place your only faith, reliance, and trust on Karma.

Z.

II.

My Dear Brother:

Your last long letter came duly to hand and has been read with much pleasure. It is quite rare to find one willing to enter this

movement on the basis you have laid down for yourself, and my previous letter was written in order to see what your attitude really was,
and also because I then felt from your writing that you were really in earnest. And before yours of to-day, I fell to thinking about you
and wondering whether a future of power, a brilliancy of knowledge, was not your aspiration, and what effect certain occurrences
would have upon that.

Judge, then, my pleasure in reading your words exactly answering my mental inquiries of yesterday and placing you in the right

position.

It is true, we must aspire ardently, and blessed is the one who, after the first aspiration, is wise enough to see the Truth.
Three qualities forever encompass us: Satwa (truth and stability), Rajas (action, war, aspiration, ambition), Tamas (indifference,

ignorance, darkness).

None may be ignored. So the path lies from Tamas, up through war, ambition, and aspiration, to Satwa, or truth and stability. We

are now in Rajasika regions, sometimes lifting our fingers up to the hem of the garment of Satwa, ever aspiring, ever trying to purify our
thoughts and free ourselves from the attachment to actions and objects. So, of course, the ardent student naturally aspires for power.
This is wise. But he must soon begin to see what he must do for real progress. For continual aspiration for power merely is sure to sow
for us the giant weed of self, which is the giant spoken of in Light on the Path.

As to the Theosophical Society, all should be admitted, for we can refuse no one. If this is a Universal Brotherhood, we can make

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no distinctions; but we can put ourselves right in the beginning by seeing that people do not enter with mistaken notions of what we have.
And yet with all our precautions, how often we find persons who are not really sincere themselves judging us by their standard,
unbelieving in our sincerity. They enter; they find that each must study for himself and that no guides are told off to each one; then they
are disgusted. They forget that "the kingdom of heaven must be taken by violence." We have also had to suffer from our friends. People
who have joined us in secret like Nicodemus; they have stood idly by, waiting for the Cause to get strong or to get fashionable, and
leaving all the hard fighting to be done by a few earnest men who defied the hosts of Materialism and of Conventionality. Had they
spoken for their Cause, more earnest people would long ago have heard of the movement, instead of being kept away until now, like
yourself, for want of knowledge that it existed.

You will find that other members care for nothing but Theosophy, and are yet forced by circumstances to work in other fields as

well. What moments they have left are devoted to the Cause, and in consequence they have no unoccupied hours; each moment, day
and evening, is filled up, and therefore they are happy. Yet they are unhappy that they cannot give their entire working time to the Cause
in which some have been from the beginning. They feel, like Claude St. Martin, a burning desire within them to get these truths to the
ears of all men. They are truths, and you are in the right path. In America it is as easy to find the Light of Lights as in India, but all around
you are those who do not know these things, who never heard of them, and yet many of our fellow members are only anxious to study
for their own benefit. Sometimes, if it were not for my reliance on those Great Beings who beckon me ever on, I would faint, and,
leaving these people to themselves, rush off into the forest. So many people like Theosophy, and yet they at once wish to make it select
and of high tone. It is for all men. It is for the common people, who are ever with us. Others, again, come in and wait like young birds
for food to be put into them: they will not think, and ages must pass before they will progress.

You misunderstood a little the words "Do not think much of me." Underline "much," but not "think." You will please think all the

thoughts you will of me, but do not place me on any pinnacle: that's all I meant.

A constant endeavor towards perfecting the mere mortal machine is folly. Thereby we sometimes fail to live up to our own

intuitions. This habit goes on for some time, but will get weaker as other senses (inner ones) begin to appear. Yet know the new fully
before being off with the old.

Inasmuch as we learn almost solely from each other—as we are all here for each other—the question of the effect of affinities upon

our acts and thoughts is enormous and wide. It anon saves us, and anon damns. For we may meet in our lives a person who has a
remarkable effect, either for good or ill, because of the affinities engendered in past lives. And now our eyes are open, we act to-day for
the future.

That you may pass beyond the sea of darkness, I offer you my life and help.

Z.

III.

Say, Brother Jasper, are you tired? I am. Not tired of fate or of the great "Leaders of the World," but with all these people who

gape and gape and are (excuse me) so Americanly "independent," as if men were ever independent of each other.

You ask about the "moment of choice." It is made up of all moments. It is not in space or time, but is the aggregation of those

moments flying by us each instant. It is referred to in Esoteric Buddhism as a period not yet arrived for the race, when it will as a whole
be compelled to make choice for good or evil. But any single individual can bring on the period for himself. When it will or has come,
the uninstructed cannot tell. For the student of occultism it may come in the next instant, or it may come one hundred lives after. But it
cannot come this instant unless all the previous lives have led up to it. Yet as regards the student, even if it be presented to him and he
refuse, he will be brought to the choice in future existences, with the whole body of his race. Race influences are insidious and powerful.
For instance, my race has its peculiarities deeply seated and inherited from an extraordinary past. I must be under their influence in this
body as a necessary part of my experience. In another life I might have been a prosaic Hottentot, or an Englishman, and in a succeeding
one I might be under the influence of other race peculiarities. Those influences are, then, guiding me every moment, and each thought I
have adds to them now, for either my own future use or for some other person who will come under the power of part of the force
generated now by me.

As to the sub-conscious mind. It is difficult to explain. I find constantly that I have ideas that internally I thoroughly understand, and

yet can find no language for them. Call it sub-conscious if you like. It is there and can be affected; indeed, it is affected every moment. It
is a nearness to the universal mind. So if I desire to influence—say your mind—I do not formulate your sub-conscious plane, but firmly
and kindly think of you and think of the subject I wish you to think of. This must reach you. If I am selfish, then it has more difficulty to
get there; but if it be brotherly, then it gets there more easily, being in harmony with the universal mind and the Law. The Psychical
Society speaks of it, and says that the influence "emerges into the lower mind" by one or more of the channels. But they do not know
what those "channels" are, or even if they do exist. In fact, the whole subject of mind is only faintly understood in the West. They say
"mind," meaning the vast range and departments of that which they call mind, whereas there must be a need for the names of those
departments. When the true ideas are grasped, the names will follow. Meanwhile we must be satisfied with "mind" as including the whole
thing. But it does not. Certainly it is not ordinary mental motion—ratiocination—to grasp in an instant a whole subject, premises and
conclusions, without stopping to reason. It cannot be called a picture, for with some it comes as an idea, and not as a picture. Memory.

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What is that? Is it brain-impression; or similarity of vibration, recognized upon being repeated and then producing a picture? If so, then
the power to recognize the vibration as the same as before is separate from the matter which vibrates. And if the power inhere in the
brain cells, how is it possible, when we know they are constantly being changed? Yet memory is perfect, no matter what happens. That
it is above brain is clear, because a man may be killed by having his brain blown to atoms, and yet his "shell" can give all the incidents of
his life, and they are not taken from the brain, for that is dead. Where, then, is the sub-conscious mind? And where are the channels,
and how are they connected? I think through the heart, and that the heart is the key to it all, and that the brain is only the servant of the
heart,A for remember that there is in it the "small dwarf who sits at the centre." Think it out on that line now for yourself—or any other
line that you may choose, but think.

As ever,

Z.

A Not the physical heart, but the real centre of life in man.—J. N.

IV.

Dear Sir and Brother:

In cogitating lately I thought of you in respect to some of my own thoughts. I was reading a book and looking around within myself

to see how I could enlarge my idea of brotherhood. Practice in benevolence will not give it its full growth. I had to find some means of
reaching further, and struck on this, which is as old as old age.

I am not separate from anything. "I am that which is." That is, I am Brahma, and Brahma is everything. But being in an illusionary

world, I am surrounded by certain appearances that seem to make me separate. So I will proceed to mentally state and accept that I am
all these illusions. I am my friends,—and then I went to them in general and in particular. I am my enemies; then I felt them all. I am the
poor and the wicked; I am the ignorant. Those moments of intellectual gloom are the moments when I am influenced by those ignorant
ones who are myself. All this in my nation. But there are many nations, and to those I go in mind; I feel and I am them all, with what they
hold of superstition or of wisdom or evil. All, all is myself. Unwisely, I was then about to stop, but the whole is Brahma, so I went to the
Devas and Asuras;B the elemental world, that too is myself. After pursuing this course awhile I found it easier to return to a
contemplation of all men as myself. It is a good method and ought to be pursued, for it is a step toward getting into contemplation of the
All. I tried last night to reach up to Brahma, but darkness is about his pavilion.

Now what does all this insanity sound like? I'll tell you what: if it were not for this insanity I would go insane. But shall I not take

heart, even when a dear friend deserts me and stabs me deep, when I know that he is myself?

namastae!

Z.

I found the above letter still more valuable when I remembered that Brahma is "the universal expansive force of Nature"—from

Brih, to expand; and so stated in an article by H. P. Blavatsky in Five Years of Theosophy. In the Dhammapada we are told to think
ourselves to be the sun and stars, the wet and dry, heat and cold; in short, to feel all experience, for we can live all out in the mind.

J. N.

B Gods and demons.—J. N.

V.

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Dear Jasper:

I wish I could answer your letter as you ought to have it done. But I feel my inability. However, our duty is to never consider our

ability, but to do what comes to be done in whatever way we can, no matter how inadequate the work appears to others. When we
stop to consider our weakness, we think, by comparison, of how another would do it. Our only right is in the act itself. The
consequences are in the great Brahm. So I will just say what comes.

I feel the sadness in your letter, but know that you will rebound from that. Do not let the sadness of knowledge create despair; that

sadness is less than the joy of Truth. Abstract Truth, even, has necessarily in it all the mercy there is in the whole. Its sternness is only a
reflection from our own imperfections, which make us recognize the stern aspect alone. We are not the only ones to suffer upon the
Path. Like ourselves, Masters have wept, though They do not now weep. One of them wrote some years ago: "Do you suppose we
have not passed through many times worse trials than you now think you are in?" The Master often seems to reject and to hide his
(spiritual) face, in order that the disciple may try. On the doors and walls of the temple the word "Try" is written. ("The Brothers" is a
better designation than Mahâtmas or Masters.)

Along the path of the true student is sadness, but also there is great joy and hope. Sadness comes from a more just appreciation of

the difficulties in one's way, and of the great wickedness of the individual and collective heart of man. But look at the great fountain of
hope and of joy in the consideration that the Brothers exist, that They were men too; They had to fight the fight; They triumphed, and
They work for those left after Them. Then beyond Them are "the Fathers," that is, the spirits of "just men made perfect," those Who
lived and worked for humanity ages ago and Who are now out of our sphere, but Who nevertheless still influence us in that Their
spiritual forces flow down upon this earth for all pure souls. Their immediate influence is felt by Masters, and by us through the latter.

Now, as you say, it is all Faith; but what is Faith? It is the intuitional feeling—"that is true." So formulate to yourself certain things

as true that you feel to be true, and then increase your faith in them.

Don't be anxious. Don't get "maddened." Because in the fact that you are "maddened" (of course in the metaphorical sense) is

found the proof that you are anxious. In a worldly sense it is perhaps well to be anxious about a highly important matter, but in occultism
it is different, for the Law takes no account of our projects and objects, or our desire to be ahead or behind. So, if we are anxious, we
raise a barrier against progress, by perturbation and straining harshly. You wrote to B. that what is his, is his. Then the converse is true;
what is not, is not. Why don't you take your own medicine?

Yours,

Z.

VI.

Dear Jasper:

It is a great advance that you hear the bells, which few hear, and evidence that you are where you can hear them; that is a great

deal indeed. Do not look for the voice of the bells, but regard the ideas which thereupon come into the head, and apply to them the
touchstone of your own Soul, just as you advised B. The fact that you feel "dead" is something you should not worry about. It is likely
that you are under the operation of a law which prevails in nature, that you will find referred to in an article in Path Magazine for April,
'86, page 14. It is that the soul goes to a new place or new surroundings and becomes silent there awhile—what you call "dead"—and
draws strength there, begins to get accustomed to its new surroundings, after which it begins to move about. This is seen in ordinary life
in the bashfulness of a boy. That is, the bashfulness is the shyness felt in new surroundings, and is just what happens when the soul goes
to a new place or into new surroundings. There can be no loss or detriment to our efforts. Every aspiration higher brightens up the road
connecting the higher and lower self. No doubt of that. It is not what is done, but the spirit in which the least thing is done that is
counted. Hear the word of the Master.

"He who does the best he knows how and that he can do, does enough for us."
The mere fact that a man appreciates these truths and feels these aspirations is proof that he is on the right road. It is well to tread it

now. We will not always live. Death must come. How much better, then, to embrace death while thus at work than to swerve off only to
be brought up with suddenness in after lives. Immediate rebirth is for those who are always working with their hearts on Master's work
and free from self interest.

The one Spirit is in all, is the property of each, therefore It is always there, always with us, and, by reflecting on that, little room is

left for sorrow or delusion. If we believe that the soul of all is measured by the whole of Time and not by a part, then we care not for
these moments which relate alone to our body. If we live in our hearts we soon prove that space and time exist not. Nothing foreign to
Master enters there; our faults are not there. The heart reaches Him always, and no doubt He replies. He does I know. He helps us
while He leaves us to ourselves. He needs not to stoop to see our devotion, for that is of a supernal quality and reaches anywhere.

No, I do not say nor have I said that you ought to do something other than you do. We each do what we can. None of us can be

the judge of any creature existing; so I do not judge you in the least respect. Your life may in the great sum total be greater than any life I
ever led or that any one has led. Whether you are in America, Europe, or India makes no difference. This is seeking conditions. I have
come to understand that Masters themselves must have worked themselves up out of much worse conditions than we are in. No matter

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where we are, the same spirit pervades all and is accessible. What need, then, to change places? We do not change ourselves by
moving the body to another locus. We only put it under a different influence. And in order to change we must have got to dislike the
place we moved from. That is attachment by opposites, and that will produce detriment, as does all that disturbs the equilibrium of the
soul. You know the same result is produced by two exact opposites, and thus extremes meet.

That hot flame you speak of is one of the experiences, as are also the sounds. There are so many, many of these things. Often they

result from extreme tension or vibration in the aura of an aspirant of pure devotion. They are himself, and he should be on his guard
against taking them for wonders. Often they are "apparitions in Brahm." They are like new lights and sights to a mariner on an unfamiliar
coast. They will go on, or alter, or stop. You are only to carefully note them, and "do not exhibit wonder nor form association."

I cannot say more. All help you extend to any other soul is help to yourself. It is our duty to help all, and we must begin on those

nearest to us, for to run abroad to souls we might possibly help we again forsake our present duty. It is better to die in our own duty,
however mean, than to try another one. So lift your head and look around upon the hulks of past imagined faults. They were means and
teachers. Cast all doubt, all fear, all regret aside, and freely take of truth what you may contain right on every step. It will thus be well.
Eternal Truth is one and indivisible, and we may get from the Fathers (Pitris) flashes now and then of what is true.

Words are things. With me and in fact. Upon the lower plane of social intercourse they are things, but soulless and dead because

that convention in which they have their birth has made abortions of them. But when we step away from that conventionality they
become alive in proportion to the reality of the thought—and its purity—that is behind them. So in communication between two students
they are things, and those students must be careful that the ground of intercourse is fully understood. Let us use with care those living
messengers called words.

Where I see you mistaken I will speak, to warn my Brother who temporarily knows not. For did I not call on the bugle, perhaps

other things might switch him off to where perhaps for the time he would be pleased, but would again be sorry, and then when his
mistake was plain he would justly sigh to me across dark centuries of separation that I had been false to my duty of warning.

As ever,

Z.

The new plane to which the soul may go, referred to in this letter, is the astral plane. It is the plane next above the material one, and

consists of a subtile order of matter. When a student turns his attention to the higher life and desires intensely to find the way, his soul has
begun to awaken and to speak. It has heard the voice of the spirit. Then the inner senses begin to unfold, at first ever so gently, so
tenderly, we scarce hear their report. But the soul has then turned its attention to the astral plane, that being the next one to be learned
on the way upward; its energy is transferred from the material plane to this one, and we have an influx of many confused dreams and
strange experiences, awake and asleep. These may or may not continue; all depends upon the individual soul and upon Karma. It is a
most confusing plane, and, generally speaking, we may say that those students are more fortunate who make a marked degree of
progress in spiritual things without having any conscious experience of the astral plane. For then they can later on learn it from above,
instead of from below, and with far less danger to themselves. The whole must be known, but we may progress in various ways, even
by discontinuous degrees, only then we must go back later on, to what we passed by. Such a going back does not imply detriment or
loss of degree, for such cannot be lost when once gained in reality.

With regard to the astral plane being a more subtile order of matter, this truth is often denied by clairvoyants and untrained seers.

They do not distinguish between the psychic senses and the spiritual. They can see through gross matter, such as a wall, the human
body, and so forth, as if it were glass, but they cannot see through astral substance, and hence they believe its forms and all the pictures
and shapes in the astral light to be real. Only the adept sees through these illusions, which are far more powerful because composed of a
subtile order of matter: subtile energies, fine forces have a highly increased rate of power over grosser ones. The adept has at his
command the rate of vibration which dispels them or drives them asunder. In speaking of the astral plane, I mean the lower soul plane,
and not that higher and purified quality which the author of Light on the Path calls the "divine astral."

By anxiety we exert the constrictive power of egoism, which densifies and perturbs our magnetic sphere, rendering us less

permeable to the efflux from above.

J. N.

VII.

Dear Jasper:

I have your letter, Comrade, in which you say how much you wish there were some Adepts sent to the United States to help all

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true students. Yet you know well They do not need to come here in person, in order to help. By going carefully over your letter there
appears to be the possibility of the seed of doubt in your heart as to the wise ordering of all things, for all are under the Law, and
Masters first of all. Mind, I only say the "possibility of the seed of doubt." For I judge from my own experience. Well do I remember
when I thought as you say, how much better 'twould be if some one were there.

If that is allowed to remain it will metamorphose itself into a seed and afterward a plant of doubt. Cast it right out! It does not now

show as seed of doubt, but it will be a case of metamorphosis, and the change would be so great as to deceive you into thinking it were
never from the same root. The best stand to take is that it is all right as it is now, and when the time comes for it to be better it will be so.
Meanwhile we have a duty to see that we do all we can in our own place as we see best, undisturbed and undismayed by aught.

How much I have in years gone away said and thought those very words of yours and to no profit! Why do you care what

becomes of a million human beings? Are not millions going to death daily with no one to tell them of all this? But did you suppose that all
this was not provided for? "And heavenly death itself is also well provided for." Now, then, you and I must learn to look on the deaths
or the famishing of millions of beings with unfaltering heart. Else we had better give it all up now. Consider that at this moment are so
many persons in various far distant places who cannot ever hear these truths. Do you grieve for them? Do you realize their state? No;
you realize only partially the same thing among those with whom it was your present lot to be born—I mean the nation. Do you want to
do more than your best? Do you covet the work of another? No; you do not. You will sit calmly where you are, then, and, with an
unaffected heart, picture to yourself the moral and physical deaths and famines which are now without the possibility of prevention or
amelioration. Your faith will know that all is provided for.

I do not say that you must attain to that calm now or give up seeking the Way; but I do say that you must admit that such an

attainment must be absolutely tried for. For of such is the trial, and why should we care? We must some day be able to stand any
shock, and to get ready for that time we must be now triumphant over some smaller things. Among others is the very position you and I
are now in; that is, standing our ground and feeling ourselves so much and so awfully alone. But we know that They have left us a
commandment. That we keep, although now and then objects, senses, men, and time conspire to show us that Masters laugh at us. It is
all a delusion. It is only one consequence of our past Karma now burning itself out before our eyes. The whole phantasmagoria is only a
picture thrown up against the Screen of Time by the mighty magic of Prakriti (Nature). But you and I are superior to Nature. Why, then,
mind these pictures? Part of that very screen, however, being our own mortal bodies, we can't help the sensation derived therefrom
through our connection with the body. It is only another form of cold or heat; and what are they? They are vibrations; they are felt; they
do not really exist in themselves. So we can calmly look on the picture as it passes fragmentarily through those few square feet contained
within the superficial boundaries of our elementary frame. We must do so, for it is a copy of the greater, of the universal form. For we
otherwise will never be able to understand the greater picture. Now, then, is there not many a cubic inch of your own body which is
entitled to know and to be the Truth in greater measure than now? And yet you grieve for the ignorance of so many other human beings!
Grieve on; and I grieve too. Do not imagine that I am what is there written. Not so. I am grieving just the same outwardly, but inwardly
trying what I have just told you. And what a dream all this is. Here I am writing you so seriously, and now I see that you know it all quite
well and much better than I do.

Yet, my dear Jasper, now and then I feel—not Doubt of Masters who hear any heartbeat in the right direction, but—a terrible

Despair of these people. Oh, my God! The age is black as hell, hard as iron. It is iron, it is Kali Yuga. Kali is always painted black. Yet
Kali Yuga by its very nature, and terrible, swift momentum, permits one to do more with his energies in a shorter time than in any other
Yuga. But heavens, what a combat! Demons from all the spheres; waving clouds of smoky Karma; dreadful shapes; stupefying
exhalations from every side. Exposed at each turn to new dangers. Imagine a friend walking with you who you see is in the same road,
but all at once he is permeated by these things of death and shows a disposition to obstruct your path, the path of himself. Yes; the gods
are asleep for awhile. But noble hearts still walk here, fighting over again the ancient fight. They seek each other, so as to be of mutual
help. We will not fail them. To fail would be nothing, but to stop working for Humanity and Brotherhood would be awful. We cannot:
we will not. Yet we have not a clear road. No, it is not clear. I am content if I can see the next step in advance only. You seek The
Warrior. He is here, somewhere. No one can find him for you. You must do that. Still He fights on. No doubt He sees you and tries to
make you see Him. Still He fights on and on.

How plainly the lines are drawn, how easily the bands are seen. Some want a certificate, or an uttered pledge, or a secret meeting,

or a declaration, but without any of that I see those who—up to this hour—I find are my "companions." They need no such folly. They
are there; they hear and understand the battle-cry, they recognize the sign. Now where are the rest? Many have I halted, and spoken
the exact words to them, have exposed to them my real heart, and they heard nothing: they thought that heart was something else. I sigh
to think how many. Perhaps I overlooked some; perhaps some did not belong to me. There are some who partly understood the words
and the sign, but they are not sure of themselves; they know that they partake of the nature, but are still held back.

Do you not see, Jasper, that your place in the ranks is well known? You need no assurances because they are within you. Now

what a dreadful letter; but it is all true.

A student of occultism after a while gets into what we may call a psychic whirl, or a vortex of occultism. At first he is affected by

the feelings and influences of those about him. That begins to be pushed off and he passes into the whirl caused by the mighty effort of
his Higher Self to make him remember his past lives. Then those past lives affect him. They become like clouds throwing shadows on his
path. Now they seem tangible and then fade away, only a cloud. Then they begin to affect his impulse to action in many various ways.
To-day he has vague calling longings to do something, and, critically regarding himself, he cannot see in this life any cause. It is the bugle
note of a past life blown almost in his face. It startles him; it may throw him down. Then it starts before him, a phantom, or, like a person
behind you as you look at a mirror, it looks over his shoulder. Although dead and past they yet have a power. He gets too a power and
a choice. If all his previous past lives were full of good, then irresistible is the force for his benefit. But all alike marshal up in front, and
he hastens their coming by his effort. Into this vortex about him others are drawn, and their germs for good or ill ripen with activity. This
is a phase of the operation of Karmic stamina. The choice is this. These events arrive one after the other and, as it were, offer

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themselves. If he chooses wrong, then hard is the fight. The one chosen attracts old ones like itself perhaps, for all have a life of their
own. Do you wonder that sometimes in the case of those who rush unprepared into the "circle of ascetics" and before the ripe moment,
insanity sometimes results? But then that insanity is their safety for the next life, or for their return to sanity.

Receive my brotherly assurances, my constant desire to help you.

In respect to Karmic action it is well to recall the statement of Patanjali that "works exist only in the shape of mental deposits."

(Book 2, Aph. 12, A.) By "works" is here meant Karma, the stock of works, or Action. Its results remain as mental deposits or
potential energies in the higher part of the fifth principle, and when it reïncarnates those seeds are there to "ripen on the tablets of the
mind" whenever they are exposed to favoring circumstances. Sometimes they remain dormant for want of something to arouse them, as
in the case of children. "The mental deposits of works, collected from time without beginning in the ground of the mind, as they by
degrees arrive at maturation, so do they, existing in lesser or greater measure (the sum of merit being less than that of demerit, or
conversely) lead to their effects in the shape of rank, raised or lowered, ... or experience of good or ill." (Book 2, Aph. 13, B.) The
mind energizes and impels us to fresh action. The impulse lies within, in germ, and may be ripened by interior or exterior suggestion. Can
we, then, be too careful to guard the ground of the mind, to keep close watch over our thoughts? These thoughts are dynamic. Each one
as it leaves the mind has a vis viva of its own, proportionate to the intensity with which it was propelled. As the force or work done, of
a moving body, is proportionate to the square of its velocity, so we may say that the force of thoughts is to be measured by the square
or quadrupled power of their spirituality, so greatly do these finer forces increase by activity. The spiritual force, being impersonal,
fluidic, not bound to any constricting center, acts with unimaginable swiftness. A thought, on its departure from the mind, is said to
associate itself with an elemental; it is attracted wherever there is a similar vibration, or, let us say, a suitable soil, just as the winged
thistle-seed floats off and sows itself in this spot and not in that, in the soil of its natural selection. Thus the man of virtue, by admitting a
material or sensual thought into his mind, even though he expel it, sends it forth to swell the evil impulses of the man of vice from whom
he imagines himself separated by a wide gulf, and to whom he may have just given a fresh impulse to sin. Many men are like sponges,
porous and bibulous, ready to suck up every element of the order preferred by their nature. We all have more or less of this quality: we
attract what we love, and we may derive a greater strength from the vitality of thoughts infused from without than from those self-
reproduced within us at a time when our nervous vitality is exhausted. It is a solemn thought, this, of our responsibility for the impulse of
another. We live in one another, and our widely different deeds have often a common source. The occultist cannot go far upon his way
without realizing to what a great extent he is "his brother's keeper." Our affinities are ourselves, in whatever ground they may live and
ripen.

J. N.

VIII.

Dear Jasper:

I seize a few moments to acknowledge your letter. This is a period of waiting, of silence. Nothing seems alive. All oracles are silent.

But the great clock of the Universe still goes on, unheeding. On Sunday I engaged in Meditation and received some benefit. I wished I
could see you to speak of it. Yet these things are too high for words, and when we approach the subjects we are not able to give
expression to our thoughts. We do not live up to our highest soul possibilities. All that prevents our reaching up to the high thoughts of
the far past is our own weakness, and not the work of any other. How petty seem the cares of this earth when we indulge in deep
reflection; they are then seen for what they are, and later on they are obliterated. It is true that the road to the gods is dark and difficult,
and, as you say, we get nothing from them at first call; we have to call often. But we can on the way stop to look ahead, for no matter
how sombre or howsoever weak ourselves, the Spectator sees it all and beckons to us, and whispers, "Be of good courage, for I have
prepared a place for you where you will be with me forever." He is the Great Self; He is ourselves.

The Leaders of the world are always trying to aid us. May we pass the clouds and see them ever. All our obstructions are of our

own making. All our power is the storage of the past. That store we all must have; who in this life feels it near is he who has in this life
directed his thoughts to the proper channel. That others do not feel it is because they have lived but blindly. That you do not feel it and
see it more is because you have not yet directed all your mental energies to it....